-So, I totally revamped our calendar time, and I am loving the results. I did away with the typical grid-style learning calendar that I have always used in the past. Grid calendars aren't horrible things to use in a classroom, and I hope to introduce the grid-style later on this year after we master the application basics for counting and finding the day of the week. But for now, grid calendars will not be my go-to for teaching calendar concepts. There were several problems inherent in the design of the grid calendar which make learning ANY calendar concepts difficult for my students.

Grid calendars make it difficult for littles to orient themselves within the task, because they make it difficult for littles to understand where to go and what to do next. Those rows really mess my littles up! Having to remember to drop down and then go all the way back to the left for each new week when you are simultaneously learning/practicing speech sounds, counting and physically manipulating the pointer requires a lot of simultaneous motor planning and task analysis that littles may struggle with. Grid calendars make it difficult for littles to find the information that they are looking for. This is most evident when a child is trying to tell you what day of the week it is when the number date that they're starting from is three rows down from the top of the calendar! The biggest problem with the grid style is that the format of rows and columns requires so much simultaneous motor-planning and task analysis that the process becomes so slowed down that the poor little ﻿forgets what they were doing OR how to do it﻿. Or, both. Which increases prompting and decreases independence. Which leads to frustration for both child and teacher. So, I decided to reduce the MP and TA as much as I could- at least for now.

So, where does that leave us? I am hoping that I have an answer to that question. It's called a linear calendar. I found this lovely idea on the internet on a teacher's website, and I used her inspiration to make my own. If I get her permission, I will link to her website and share her pictures with you later. Basically, a linear calendar is a calendar that is one straight shot across, so that littles don't have to bother with rows or columns. It's just a row of numbers, with a row of days of the week above it. Ours required taping five foamcore boards together to make a stand-alone backdrop, because linear calendars take up a lot of space! We are also still using a regular wall calendar- look under the "About" tab and find "Some Things to Do With a Real Calendar" for more details on how we have used them in the past.

I will post soon about HOW we use the linear calendar and will share our calendar routine with you. For now, I just want to bask in the gloriousness of seeing my littles learning without all of the losing-my-place and what-do-I-do-nextness. For now, here's a picture. It's not a great quality photo so I have included a closeup too.